1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method, particularly, to a reaction furnace in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, and more particularly, to a reaction furnace in a single-substrate or double-substrate processing type semiconductor manufacturing apparatus which processes substrates-to-be-processed one by one or two by two.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus which conducts a processing such as film-formation, etching and the like on a surface of a substrate-to-be-processed such as a wafer, so as to form a large number of semiconductor elements onto the surface of the substrate-to-be-processed, there are a batch type semiconductor manufacturing apparatus which processes a number of substrates-to-be-processed at a time, and a single substrate processing type semiconductor manufacturing apparatus which processes substrates one by one.
Although the single substrate processing type semiconductor manufacturing apparatus is inferior to the batch type semiconductor manufacturing apparatus in productivity of products, the former apparatus is superior to the latter in uniformity of film qualities of a processed substrate and has the advantage that diversified requirements from customers can be satisfied. In recent years, the single substrate processing type apparatus has become mainstream.
A reaction container used for a single substrate processing type semiconductor manufacturing apparatus is of substantially rectangular parallelepiped shape in many cases. The interior of the reaction chamber is typically evacuated. Therefore, such a reaction container is required to have a strength great enough to withstand a pressure difference between the inside and outside of the container. Therefore, problems occur if the apparatus is increased in size, because manufacturing thereof becomes difficult, the structure becomes complicated and mass production efficiency is deteriorated, and the cost of materials is increased.